


11,746,190

by butterflyswimmer



Category: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni | Higurashi When They Cry
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Post-Canon, Romance, Short, mion pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-04 22:01:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12780480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflyswimmer/pseuds/butterflyswimmer
Summary: All in all, she thinks, yes - she’s lucky to have a balcony with space to stand and only space to stand, amongst any other number of things.





	11,746,190

She was lucky enough to have a balcony with space to stand.

 

Mion felt a little guilty, sometimes, when it came to her family, their money and their connections. Maybe it’d be different if it were an empire she’d contributed anything of worth to. Whatever the case - she’d found it tended to hit her hardest on these evenings in particular, where she’d be out watering her plants, surveying the sea of apartment buildings evermore modest than the one she lived in alone at eighteen years of age. Still, space though there is, it’s not enough for a chair - and so she stands, hands on the chilly metal railing as she watches the city sink lazily into evening. Soon, the lights in windows would begin to flicker on one by one. She found the enormity of it all magical, never tired of it day after day. It was, after all, the closest thing she had to the expanse of stars that roofed Hinamizawa. Watching her corner of Tokyo, she mused on how much the village she called home felt like some widescale blanket fort - velvety sky draped over the tips of the mountains, enclosing the village in darkness, as entirely as though it were a secret to be kept.

Tokyo’s sky is lazy, less dynamic. A watercolour painting, swept with clouds. The colours are all muted, often caught in a smog, as though all the exhaustion of the millions the city housed collectively evaporated at the end of each day. From where she lives, just looking down at it all can tire her. So many lives, confined to such a small space. Nowhere for all that energy to go.

 

Mion liked Tokyo. Mion liked Hinamizawa, too. What the changes life had brought had taught her was that she was who she was, wherever she went. Perhaps disappointing for some - perhaps a relief for her. Most of all, she found it wasn’t the place that dictated a sense of belonging.

 

His hand on her shoulder should be unexpected, but she doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even turn, as he comes out to join her. There’s hardly the room to, anyway. He squeezes in beside her - moves his arm to encircle her shoulders and pull her closer.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Everything. Nothing.” She relaxes into him. Even only a few months since they’d started dating, everything comes easier than she’d expected. It was such a relief not to pretend any more. She lets out a sigh.

“You okay?”

“Better than okay.”

He turns towards her, then. If they’d had a more significant height difference, he might’ve been able to rest his chin on her forehead. He has to settle for her shoulder. And, then, it only makes sense to hug her.

“Sometimes I hate that you’re older.” His voice is muffled through the fabric of her shirt. He inhales deeply, breathes her in. She wraps her arms around him, holds him close.

“Don’t be a baby.”

He hums, a nondescript response - though she thinks she can feel him smile against her neck. Behind them, Tokyo’s turning into an upturned sky of stars, one apartment and one life at a time. Somewhere a family prepares dinner, a businesswoman gets home from work, a student crams for a test. She closes her eyes. Grasps the material of his shirt in her fists, like it’ll make him more real.

 

She’d be content to stay like this until the night brought goosebumps to her skin, but, for whatever reason, humans weren’t designed to hold one another for hours, not that it had stopped her before. Still, here, on this night, Keiichi’s the first to pull away. The sky’s violet.

For a while they just look at one another. She’s distantly aware her cheeks are probably the same colour the sunset had been however long ago, doesn’t really mind. And then he leans in and kisses her.

She hasn’t noticed his hands are still on her waist until his fingers dig ever so slightly into her, as if he’s thinking the exact same thing she had earlier. As if she isn’t kissing him back, now, eyes closed, palms splayed across his back so she can touch as much of him as possible all at once.

After a moment they slow down - perhaps she’s becoming one of the people of this city, now. Always chasing time as though it’ll slip through her fingers entirely. And when she does that, she finds, everything really is more real. The breeze picking up against her skin, making her shiver slightly. His fringe brushing her forehead, coarse. His hands that still haven’t let her go, always gentle. His eyelashes tickling her face. The somehow silence of the heart of a country, the entirety of one other person. In the quiet, she wonders if he can feel her heartbeat.

 

All in all, she thinks, yes - she’s lucky to have a balcony with space to stand and only space to stand, amongst any other number of things.


End file.
